nder way, Maxime de Trailles turned to d'Arthez
and said smiling:--

"You see a great deal, don't you, of the Princesse de Cadignan?"

To this question d'Arthez responded by curtly nodding his head. Maxime
de Trailles was a "bravo" of the social order, without faith or law,
capable of everything, ruining the women who trusted him, compelling
them to pawn their diamonds to give him money, but covering this conduct
with a brilliant varnish; a man of charming manners and satanic mind.
He inspired all who knew him with equal contempt and fear; but as no
one was bold enough to show him any sentiments but those of the utmost
courtesy he saw nothing of this public opinion, or else he accepted and
shared the general dissimulation. He owed to the Comte de Marsay the
greatest degree of elevation to which he could attain. De Marsay,
whose knowledge of Maxime was of long-standing, judged him capable of
fulfilling certain secret and diplomatic functions which he confided to
him and of which de Trailles acquitted himself admirably. D'Arthez had
for some time past mingled sufficiently in political matters to know the
man for what he was, and he alone had sufficient strength and height of
character to express aloud what others thought or said in a whisper.

"Is it for her that you neglect the Chamber?" asked Baron de Nucingen in
his German accent.

"Ah! the princess is one of the most dangerous women a man can have
anything to do with. I owe to her the miseries of my marriage,"
exclaimed the Marquis d'Esgrignon.

"Dangerous?" said Madame d'Espard. "Don't speak so of my nearest friend.
I have never seen or known anything in the princess that did not seem to
come from the noblest sentiments."

"Let the marquis say what he thinks," cried Rastignac. "When a man has
been thrown by a fine horse he thinks it has vices and he sells it."

Piqued by these words, the Marquis d'Esgrignon looked at d'Arthez and
said:--

"Monsieur is not, I trust, on such terms with the princess that we
cannot speak freely of her?"

D'Arthez kept silence. D'Esgrignon, who was not wanting in cleverness,
replied to Rastignac's speech with an apologetic portrait of the
princess, which put the whole table in good humor. As the jest was
extremely obscure to d'Arthez he leaned towards his neighbor, Madame de
Montcornet, and asked her, in a whisper, what it meant.

"Excepting yourself--judging by the excellent opinion you seem to have
of the princess--all the o